I was watching the “Black Books” pilot (BB is one of my favorite British sitcoms) and noticed that the same actor, Martin Freeman, who plays the unnamed doctor in the pilot also plays John Watson in the new Sherlock Holmes series. It gave me one of my rare urges to write a fan fiction story, a cross over in which John Watson was the attending ( Read more... )

It is a common saying among writers that characters must grow, but while this has artistic validity, it certainly has commercial limitations.  As pointed out by one of my favorite writers, Umberto Eco, if a series becomes popular, each story has to be different enough to maintain interest, but similar enough to maintain loyalty. Sometimes this ( Read more... )